@ Danny - I was feeling dissatisfied with my response before and wanted to add more, if you are interested. I also was confused a bit about how to answer your questions b/c of the way you asked them, so maybe you can help me with that.
You asked me to answer my own question, ‘how does the TTI not represent a double bind context?’ I have not found an answer, this thread is my support for that assertion.
Although I did use the axiom ‘One cannot not communicate’ to attempt to answer your question, ‘… what happens when the program is not forcing you to do the behavioral modification excercises, but rather Teaching. Isn’t being taught optional in it’s essence, you (the projectipant) decide.’ I’m not so sure I really understand it the way it is asked.
To clarify my confusion, let me start with the word I’ve been using ‘projectipant’. This word is supposed to compliment the process that does not make any delineations between those who are choosing it or forced into it.
Now the first part of why I am confused as to how to answer is b/c you asked, what happens if you are not forced, but you also used the word projectipant, which implies a situation of force. So, if the situation is NOT forced, then you can’t be a projectipant, you are a participant. I would also let this statement include situations in which informed consent as to the process is not presented, and though an agreement on the part of a subject may be made, there can be no expectation that the individual had an understanding for what was chosen.
One last confusing part is in asking, What happens when the program is not forcing you to do the behavior modification excercises, but rather Teaching.’
That is a tough question to get specific about. I suppose I have to ask you what you mean by ‘teaching’ because, in family systems theory, learning does occur consciously, but very much of our learning occurs outside of our conscious awareness. There are many theories of learning. Behavior modification is a concept from the behavioral sciences, very much connected with the authors I have been discussing. Behavior modification has distinct roots in creating change outside of the awareness of the subject. I think if using behavior modification techniques required truly informed consent on the part of the subject it would severely handicap it’s functionality. So when you say ‘teaching’ I interpret that as reffering to the learning that is occurring within ones conscious awareness, and teaching behavioral modification excercises then, I feel, means the student is being taught how to use the process, or about the context of the process, not learning as a result of the process that is not made known to them.
One particular theory of learning that was developed by Bateson applies here. This is Deutero- learning which is sometimes called ‘learning to learn’. I’ll work on pulling up some better info on this, I know I can find it somewhere, but for now, Danny, I think you in particular might enjoy this, I could be wrong, just a hunch. But as you read consider my question to you, what do you mean by ‘teacher’, when you asked me before.
“… Deutero- learning has to do with the perception of context and the learning of classes of behavior.
…. Another insightful example of deutero learning phenomena occurs in the development of “experimental neurosis” in laboratory animals. This occurs when an animal, trained to discriminate between two stimuli, an elipse and a circle for example, is forced to continue making the discrimination as the stimuli are made to match each other more and more closely until discrimination becomes impossible. At this point the animal will begin to exhibit symptoms such as refusal to eat, attacking the trainer, even become comatose. An animal that has not been pre-trained, when presented with the undiscriminable stimuli will not show any of the symptoms but simply guess randomly.”
http://nlpuniversitypress.com/html/D19.html “LEVELS OF LEARNING
In 1942, Gregory Bateson introduced the concept of 'deutero-learning' to denote the processes of learning to learn. According to Bateson, learning to learn means the acquisition of certain abstract habits of thought like "'free will', instrumental thinking, dominance, passivity, etc." (Bateson 1972, 166). As Bateson further noted, "even within the duration of the single learning experiment we must suppose that some deutero-learning will occur" (Bateson 1972, 169). Deutero-learning often takes place as tacit acquisition of non-conscious apperceptive habits.
In 1969, Bateson presented a more sophisticated version of his learning theory. He worked out a complex hierarchy of the processes of learning, based upon "an hierarchic classification of the types of error which are to be corrected in the various learning processes" (Bateson 1972, 287). He summarized the hierarchy as follows.
"Zero learning is characterized by specificity of response, which - right or wrong - is not subjected to correction.
Learning I is change in specificity of response by correction of errors of choice within a set of alternatives.
Learning II is change in the process of Learning I, e.g., a corrective change in the set of alternatives from which choice is made, or it is a change in how the sequence of experience is punctuated.
Learning III is change in the process of Learning II, e.g., a corrective change in the system of sets of alternatives from which choice is made. (We shall see later that to demand this level of performance of some men and some mammals is sometimes pathogenic.)
Learning IV would be change in Learning III, but probably does not occur in any adult living organism on this earth. Evolutionary process has, however, created organisms whose ontogeny brings them to Level III. The combination of phylogenesis with ontogenesis, in fact, achieves Level IV." (Bateson 1972, 293.)
According to Bateson, Learning I comprises the forms of learning treated by various versions of connectionism: habituation, Pavlovian conditioning, operant conditioning, rote learning, extinction. "In Learning I, every item of perception or behavior may be stimulus or response or reinforcement according to how the total sequence of interaction is punctuated", Bateson (1972, 292) notes. On the other hand, Learning II or learning to learn (deutero-learning) means the acquisition of the context or structure of some type of Learning I. Thus, common descriptions of a person's 'character' are actually characterizations of the results of Learning II. "It follows that Learning II acquired in infancy is likely to persist through life." (Bateson 1972, 301.)
The outcomes of Learning II, the habits or the 'character', save the individual from "having to examine the abstract, philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical aspects of many sequences of life" (Bateson 1972, 303). Learning III, on the other hand, is essentially conscious self-alteration: it will "throw these unexamined premises open to question and change" (Bateson 1972, 303). Learning III is a rare event, produced by the contradictions of Learning II. On Level III, the individual learns to control, limit and direct his Learning II. He becomes conscious of his habits and their formation. "Certainly it must lead to a greater flexibility in the premises acquired by the process of Learning II - a freedom from their bondage." (Bateson 1972, 304.)
The power of Bateson's argument has been amply testified by a number of eloquent analyses of the 'hidden curriculum' in school learning (see especially Levy 1976) as well as by works like those of Argyris and Schön (1974; 1978) on 'single-loop learning' and 'double-loop learning' in organizations and professions. The unconscious learning to learn, acquiring the context of 'how to make it' in school and work, is a fact readily observable every day. Learning III seems indeed a rare event.
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestro ... ng/ch3.htm .
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